When Elliott Manning left his home in Atlanta, Georgia, to start his freshman year at Columbia College in New York City in 1951, he received a Ford Foundation scholarship to help cover the $640 annual tuition. With the help of financial aid, Manning later completed his juris doctor at Harvard Law School and became an expert in tax law.

Today, Miami Law's Professor and Dean's Distinguished Scholar for the Profession continues to pay it forward by contributing to School of Law scholarships through the University's Annual Fund.

"I've been supporting the Annual Fund for 30 years," says Manning, who joined Miami Law's faculty in 1980. "I know the importance of scholarships from my own personal experience. As a young man from the South who had never been north of Virginia Beach before, being able to go to college at Columbia was a life-changing experience."

Before joining the UM faculty, Manning was a senior partner in the New York firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton LLP, and hadn't considered an academic career. "But I took a sabbatical and taught for a semester at Stanford University," he says. "I found I liked teaching, and when the University of Miami needed someone to run the Graduate Program in Taxation, my wife and I came here."

During his time at UM, Manning has written several books and numerous articles on various federal income tax topics and is happy to share this tip: "When you donate to the Annual Fund or make other charitable contributions to the University, you can get a tax deduction that can save you up to a third of your contribution," he says. "That's a nice benefit for supporting a worthy cause."